VOICING PATRICIA JABBEH WESLEY: Book Launch of the Liberian Writer’s Collected Poems
The African Poetry Book Fund, led by Professor Kwame Dawes, the Literary Arts Department, and Africana Studies are thrilled to celebrate the book launch of Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: Collected Poems, 1998–2020 at the Rites and Reason Theatre on Friday, September 25th with the Brown and Providence communities. The event will also be live streamed via the Brown events page.
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley is the first major poet out of Africa’s oldest republic of Liberia since the nation’s founding and remains one of the most important poets from Africa. This evening is in celebration of her most recent publication, a collected edition of her poems edited by Kwame Dawes and Marguerite Harrold, with an introduction by South African writer Gabeba Baderoon.
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley: Collected Poems, 1998–2020 (University of Nebraska Press 2026) spans two decades of Jabbeh Wesley’s impressive oeuvre. In conversation with Africa and her new homeland of America, Jabbeh Wesley’s craft is imbued with Grebo oral tradition, bringing her language alive as she makes readers cry out in anger or laughter. On one page you may find reason to mourn the brutality of war, and on the next, a reason to laugh about the beauty of family or at the small wonders of everyday life. Poetry, to Jabbeh Wesley, is not about words; it is about the story, the story of the living seeking to give new life to both the living and those she calls the dead living.
This book marks the fifth title of the Contemporary Classics imprint of the African Poetry Book Series, edited by Kwame Dawes. These volumes highlight the breadth and length of major African poets’ careers and contributions to world literature, and thus seek to redress the problem of accessibility to the work of some of Africa’s most gifted and accomplished poets.
This celebration event will feature a staged performance of Patricia Jabbeh Wesley’s poetry, performed by Rachel (Afia) Ansong, Zaynab Ilyasu-Bobi, and Anya Lewis-Meeks and directed by Kwame Dawes; an interview by poet and scholar Gabeba Baderoon, author of the introduction of the collection; and a poetry reading by Patricia Jabbeh Wesley.
A catered reception and book signing will follow the event.
Event Details
Date: Friday, 25 September 2026
Time: 4 pm – 6:30 pm
Location: Rites and Reason Theatre, 155 Angell Street, Providence RI 02905
RSVP: This event is free and open to the public. Please click here to register.
Livestream: Available via the Brown events page.
Participant Biographies:
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley is a professor of English, creative writing, and African literature at Pennsylvania State University–Altoona. She immigrated to the United States with her husband and children in 1991, during the First Liberian Civil War. Wesley is the author of six collections of poetry, including Praise Song for My Children: New and Selected Poems, Becoming Ebony, and When the Wanderers Come Home (Nebraska, 2016).
Kwame Dawes is a professor of literary arts at Brown University. An author of numerous books of poetry, fiction, criticism, and essays, Dawes is the Series Editor of the African Poetry Book Series, Director of the African Poetry Book Fund, and Artistic Director of the Calabash International Literary Festival. A Chancellor for the Academy of American Poets and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Dawes serves as the Poet Laureate of Jamaica (2024-2027). His most recent book, co-authored with John Kinsella, is Mortality (Peepal Tree Press 2024).
Gabeba Baderoon is a poet and scholar. She is the author of three collections of poetry: The Dream in the Next Body, A Hundred Silences, and The History of Intimacy. She is Professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, African Studies and Comparative Literature at Pennsylvania State University.
Marguerite L. Harrold is the author of Chicago House Music: Culture and Community. She is a PhD student in English (creative writing) at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
Poetry Performers
Rachel (Afia) Ansong , Anya Lewis-Meeks, and Zaynab Ilyasu Bobi